East Bay baseball team to honor fallen firefighter whose smile was visible through his catcher's mask'

The scouting report on Jake Walter the baseball player mirrored the scouting report on Jake Walter the person.

“Jake played with a lot of passion and was a stoic figure in our program,” said Dirk Morrison, who coached Walter at Cal State East Bay in 2009-10. “He always had a great style, warm and a firm handshake. Just a great young man.”

Walter displayed purpose to go with his passion. After graduating from Cal State East Bay, he trained to be a firefighter.

Walter’s tenure as an Oakland firefighter, serving his hometown, was heart-achingly brief. On Aug. 11, Walter, who was not on duty or in uniform, was approached near San Jose’s Japantown by a man who shot him and one of his Oakland Fire Department colleagues. Walter died from his wound. He was 30. The attack was seemingly random. Senseless doesn’t even begin to describe it.

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“It was definitely really, really hard to hear,” said Charlie Sharrer, a teammate of Walter’s in 2010. “When I heard it, we were getting into the stage of planning the alumni weekend. I knew we had to do something for Jake. He was one of the best persons, the best teammates I ever had. He was a firefighter devoting his life to something greater.”

An event has been added to Cal State East Bay’s annual alumni baseball weekend, Feb. 16 and 17, one that will shine a light on the way Walter lived and not how he died. The Jake Walter Memorial Golf Tournament will be held Friday, Feb. 16 at Redwood Canyon Golf Course in Castro Valley. The alumni game will be held at noon the next day, and there will be a fundraiser dinner that night at Crow Canyon Country Club at 6 p.m. Some proceeds from the golf tournament will go to the Oakland Fire Department’s Random Acts program.

“Jake was heavily involved in (the random acts program) even before he was sworn in, doing work for them, go run events, do booths,” said Stephen Gatehouse, who played two seasons with Walter and is now the baseball coach at Mountain House High School. “That was what his girlfriend and his parents suggested.”

Jimmy Ly and Walter were both 17 when they met. They played together in high school, played against each other in community college, and became teammates again at Cal State East Bay.

Not everything came easily for Walter, Ly said. Apparently, tenacity did. The two friends spent hours practicing in an effort to gain more playing time. “He and I had higher expectations of getting more playing time,” Ly said. “When we didn’t, we talked on the bench about how we could improve. We’d share a lot of conversations, even after games, practicing and hitting soft toss.

“If we are going to try to be optimistic about it, the best way is to look at the way he lived his life and served his community. When he was 18, he said, ‘I’m going to be a firefighter.’ The years went on. He was trying to take the right classes. He got into the EMT thing, and it wasn’t quite happening for him. And it finally did and four months after he finished the academy, this happens. I’d say he worked half his life to get there, and it was just taken away.”

“It hit people hard for sure,” Gatehouse said. “The turnout for the memorial service was standing room only. He was a man of the people for sure. We all kind of agreed that it’s not the easiest way to get back together, but it helped to be together to help each other heal.”

To hear his friends talk, if Walter could be here, he would be leading the healing.

“His laugh was something you can’t forget,” Gatehouse said. “He was a leader, the life of the party. He made everybody feel welcome. He wanted everyone enjoying themselves.”

“Just his smile,” Sharrer said when asked what he remembers most about Walter. “You could see it through his catcher’s mask.”